


Windy Hollow

by orphan_account



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-02-15
Updated: 2011-03-06
Packaged: 2017-10-15 16:21:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/162638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Multi-chaptered mute!fic---I will be revising and updating this in the future-- likely over the summer (2013). Stay tuned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was a sick joke.

It had to be.

I closed my eyes and held my breath, waiting for the inevitable, “Oh, Justin. I can’t believe you thought we were serious.”

It never came.

I felt the rush of blood leave my limbs and travel to my head, making my temples pound. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. I swallowed.

It was cold in the room. My stomach ached. I heard Mom and Dad and Dr. Belstoe. They mumbled. It sounded like bees, like so many bees. Flies, maybe.

“For how long?” Mom asked. I could feel her warm fingers rubbing against the skin of my right kneecap. I opened my eyes. She was staring.

“Impossible to tell.” Belstoe cleared his throat, shaking his head at my mother’s question. I could see the movement of his snowy beard out the corner of my eye. “Six months to a year, maybe. Could be longer.”

“And you think it’ll help him?” That was Dad. He spoke like an unaffected businessman, like a barterer. I’ll trade you my child for a year of peace.

“I think it could do him some good, yes.” Belstoe looked at me, really looked at me, as if studying the veins behind my eyeballs, my rods, my cones, every shade of light.

I had the most uncontrollable urge to piss, like if I didn’t do it right that second, I’d explode. Mom kissed my cheek, helped me up, and I ran. The soles of my sneakers smacked the floor, my elbows bruised as I used them to fight my way down the hall.

I shoved open the bathroom door. Locked it behind me. Pissed, threw up, and contemplated smashing the mirror with my fist and cutting my throat with glass shards.

My tears were fucking bizarre. I tasted so much salt, so much wetness as they made their way down my face, I felt as if I were choking.

That thing inside me growled, tearing its way up my esophagus, twisting around my tongue, licking at my teeth, pushing against my lips. Wanting to split them open.

I bit it back, bit my tongue, swallowed, spat.

They found me there ten minutes later, curled up on the floor. Bloody spit trailed from the corner of my mouth and my bottom lip was gashed from a bite.

I couldn’t fight it.

I held my arms out for Mom, and she grabbed me up under my arms, supporting what she could. The nurse came, examined my mouth. She gave me ice, stabbed a needle into my upper arm, and I slept harder, longer, and quieter than the dead.

~*~

When I was nine years old, my parents told me I was fucked up. They showed me a wrinkled pamphlet on mutism and traced their fingers across the words, “psychological disorder,” and “childhood trauma,” and I closed my eyes because I didn’t want to understand.

“It’s not your fault, honey,” Mom said, stroking back the sweaty hair that stuck like paste to my forehead. “Not your fault at all.” She kissed the corner of my mouth.

It was Their fault, I knew it was Their fault, I’ve always known it was Their fault. They gave me the monster. They left me to deal with it.

“Daddy and I love you always and forever.”

I curled up against Mom on the bed, buried my face in her chest, and shook.

I didn’t get it, then. I was nine, and I was scared, and I didn’t know what it meant to be mute. I just knew that I used to be able to speak, but suddenly, after It, I couldn’t. I physically couldn’t.

I knew that the kids at school laughed at me, Daphne no longer wanted to be my friend, and I had the scar just below my hairline.

It was a pale pink and shined in sunlight.

You couldn’t see it after I turned thirteen. I started growing my hair out, keeping it shaggier around my face. Mom used to run her fingers through the locks to calm me down, and I used to smile.

My hair was its longest three days after my fourteenth birthday, the day it was finalized.

“Windy Hollow’s a wonderful place,” Belstoe told my parents and I, but mostly my parents. He was fat as a pig and his legs were crossed, a clipboard lying on his thigh. The buttons of his plaid shirt threatened to pop.

I still had a sore tongue and my bottom lip was shiny with ointment.

“You’ll make friends, Justin, and it’ll be a . . . controlled environment.” He clicked his pen thrice, still not talking to me. Still talking to Mom and Dad with his eyes. “No worries.”

I shrugged my shoulders and doodled with a ballpoint pen in the margins of my therapy notebook. Felt like carving out Belstoe’s heart.

I left for the Hollow on the day after Thanksgiving. Belstoe’d wanted me to leave sooner, but Mom insisted that I have a good old-fashioned family holiday, complete with turkey and dressing and handholding as we asked God to bless our food, to bless our lives. To bless me.

It was just the three of us. It was boring. Mom told me about the fun I was going to have at the Hollow, the friends I was going to make, the television I was going to watch and the music and art I was going to learn. Dad nodded his head appropriately, eyes vacant. I ate my turkey.

~*~

Mom woke me at nine.

I showered. Rubbed deodorant across the fine hairs beginning to sprout up under my arms. Put on jeans and a sweater. Combed my hair.

Before we left, Dad cupped his hand over my shoulder and squeezed his farewell. I turned, hugged him, and he patted my back awkwardly.

I drew in my sketchbook, the worn one with bent corners, the entire six-hour ride there. Mom played Dr. Laura on the radio and didn’t speak. Neither did I.

~*~

Windy Hollow was a “special home,” a castle-like boarding school perched atop a hill just outside Harrisburg. It was for crazy children, mental patients. It was where they went when their parents got “tired” and their teachers did, too, and when their psychologists had tried just about everything to get them to open their fucking mouths or put down the scissors. Go five minutes without a ritual.

“Here we are, sweetie,” Mom said as she pulled the car into a parking space reserved for visitors.

I nodded, closed my sketchbook, and unfastened my seatbelt.

It was sixty-one degrees in the lobby, and the receptionist was wrapped in a wool sweater with fuzzballs and stray glitter. She smiled, handed Mom forms, and coughed. I sat in a chair and watched the walls.

Ms. Scafidi walked in half an hour later. She was to be my coordinator, my “resident advisor,” she told me. Her eyes and hair were darker than night, but her skin was nearly transparent. She looked twenty-six. Her smile was warm. I liked her.

She led Mom and I out of the lobby and into the main hallway. Past the cafeteria, the lounge, the library. Pointing out names and reciting well-told anecdotes that made Mom smile. I hooked my thumbs in the straps of my backpack and held on.

My room was on Haven, the quiet hall. The hall for the fucked up kids with no history of violent behavior. Most of them were like me, Ms. Scafidi said, reaching out to stroke my head. I took a step away because she hadn’t asked permission to do that.

“I’m sorry, honey,” she apologized, bringing a hand up to her lips. “Sheer habit.”

I nodded but kept my distance.

My roommate’s name was Noah Doyle. He was twelve, had a head full of black hair, and was reading _Goosebumps_ when Ms. Scafidi entered the room, Mom and I trailing behind her.

The introductions were brief. Justin, this is Noah; Noah, this is Justin. He didn’t look at me.

Mom sat on my bed and glanced around the room, eyes filling.

I sat beside her.

Two men in black T-shirts and khakis came in moments later, carrying my bags. I watched in silence as Mom and Ms. Scafidi unpacked my things. Hung pants and sweaters in the closet. Tucked underwear and pajamas in drawers. Arranged my toothbrush, deodorant, and shower materials in my complementary wire basket beside Noah’s wire basket in the bathroom.

I didn’t shave yet. I wondered who would buy me a razor and shaving cream when the time came.

Mom squeezed me so tightly before she left I felt her bones, and she felt mine. She held the sides of my face, kissed my mouth and cheeks, my forehead. She told me she and Dad would visit every weekend, and that I should have a good time, make friends, and write letters. Draw her something.

I nodded and pulled away.

~*~

Since it was my first night, dinner was served in my room, saving any awkward first trips to the cafeteria for morning. I had a cheeseburger with fries and ketchup. Pepsi. My favorites. Along with my tray, Scafidi brought me a stack of papers to fill out between bites.

They were about my interests. Likes, dislikes. Things that made me uncomfortable, types of people I’d rather not be around, foods I loved, foods I hated.

I wrote some things, signed my name on the last page, and dropped the stack on the floor by my bed.

Noah stared at me, his eyes peeking up over his book. Whenever I’d turn his way, he’d look back down. He didn’t talk to me, but I didn’t think he was mute. Not mute like me, anyway. I’d heard him talking quietly to Scafidi, telling her he wanted to stay in his room during dinner. She’d nodded at him with a big smile on her face and asked him whether he preferred a burger or hotdog.

When I got up to drop my Styrofoam tray down the garbage chute outside the door, Noah held his tray out for me to retrieve. His gaze ricocheted off my face. His eyes were black as coal.

I took his tray, his food only nibbled, stacked it with mine, and disposed of them both.

He smiled at me and went back to his book.

~*~

I had trouble sleeping that night.

The mattress under me was soft, worked in by bodies of children before me. But my sheets were low thread count, hard and scratchy. They hadn’t been washed. Simply unwrapped from their package and placed on the bed. My pillowcase smelled a little like plastic.

I closed my eyes.

Noah wasn’t asleep, either. He moved too much. His bed squeaked.

I heard resident advisors walking up and down the halls.

I turned on my lamp and sketched until two.

~*~

Scafidi woke me with a laugh. It was seven-thirty and I’d fallen asleep on my sketchbook. There were graphite smudges on my cheek.

“I think you’re going to want a shower,” she said, switching off my lamp, still on in the light of morning.

I climbed from my bed. Felt like a twisted ball of twine. It was cold.

The bathroom was standard, the kind of bathroom found in any house. A shower, small bathtub, toilet, sink, and towel warmer. The mirror was clean.

I pissed, undressed, and climbed into the shower. I felt like crying a little bit because the air was so cold and the water so warm. I didn’t.

Everything was quiet except for the sound of the spray.

My soap smelled wonderful.

~*~

Scafidi retrieved me for breakfast at eight.

Careful not to touch me, she led me down the hall to the cafeteria and pointed toward the breakfast line. A mile long, probably. Kids. Skinny ones, fat ones. Most were dressed in sweatpants and T-shirts, their hair still rumpled from sleep.

“Go on and grab a tray,” Scafidi encouraged, smiling. “Have a seat anywhere once you have your food.”

I nodded and got in line. Held my tray out as the old ladies in hairnets slapped down a scoop of eggs, scoop of home fries, sausage, and two biscuits. I filled a cup with skim milk and stood at the end of the line. A little lost.

“Move it, shorty,” a boy grumbled, bumping into my back and causing milk to slosh over the top of my cup. He was tall and stocky. Beefy, even.

I swallowed and moved out of the way.

The cafeteria was small as far as cafeterias went. Ten round tables with ten little baskets of salt, pepper, ketchup, butter, and jelly. Fifty chairs. At least one kid was at every table.

To my left was a group of chatting girls. To my right was a table full of boys in black, one blonde girl in all red. The table was silent.

I didn’t understand the way the kids worked. High school, I understood. I understood the cliques in the cafeteria of St. James Academy. Snobs. Goths. Geeks. Misfits. The cafeteria of the Hollow was different. The categories weren’t the same; the kids weren’t the same.

I walked over to the window and stood. Stared at the food in my tray.

A boy about my size was seated alone at a nearby table. He was skinny and his arms were bruised, and he was spreading strawberry jelly across the inside of a biscuit.

I walked over and placed my tray across from him. Sat down. He didn’t look at me.

He was wearing a plain black T-shirt with a stretched neck, and his bottom lip was split like mine had been. I wondered if he spoke.

We ate together in silence. I glanced at him a total of five times. The first four times he was spreading jelly across his biscuit, the final time he’d taken a bite.

I tore my sausage links into small pieces and ate the pieces with a fork. I drank my milk and shredded my biscuit.

The buzzer sounded at eight-thirty, telling Haven and Bell halls it was time to get going. Sommer and Wright were coming in.

I wiped my mouth with a napkin. Tossed it in my tray. Braved another look at the boy.

He was looking at me. His eyes were a green-brown.

I looked away quickly and stood.

\--------------------

I was cold when I woke up that morning. Arms were frozen, almost, because my shirt was too small. The bed was uncomfortable. Scratchy sheets, hard mattress. The springs dug into my back.

Sylvia’s husband was in the room, grunting as he lifted my largest suitcase. He told me to get up and closed the door on his way out.

I took a lukewarm shower, pulled on clothes. Grabbed a Granny Smith apple in the kitchen, my hair still wet, and munched it as Sylvia searched the house for her keys.

“Got your stuff?” She asked as she passed by the kitchen, patting her pockets one last time.

I shrugged and chewed a piece of tough apple skin.

It was a long car ride. I pretended to sleep half the way there, but Sylvia eventually caught on and took to asking me questions she knew I wouldn’t answer.

Her hair was long and gray and knotted in a braid she hadn’t taken down in three days. It swayed as she spoke.

I didn’t like Sylvia, or her husband, either. His name was Bob or Rob or something. I didn’t know and didn’t care. They were just another couple in the long line of couples. The good Samaritans, the sixty-somethings who’d never had kids and who thought they knew how to deal with teenage boys. They didn’t.

I was with them for nine days before they sent me back. Got placed once again with Dad. Got sent right back to them for two nights so they could feed me Thanksgiving dinner and then take me to Windy Hollow.

My arms were blue. I wore my sweater that day to cover up the bruises.

When we arrived at the Hollow, it was almost four.

A Greek woman walked me to my room on Haven Hall and introduced me to my roommate. His name was Dorian Something. He was younger but taller and the walls of his half of the room were covered in drawings of dinosaurs.

Sylvia waved goodbye to me from the doorway, but I didn’t wave back. Two men came in with my suitcases and the Greek woman helped me unpack my clothes.

She didn’t say anything about the holes in my sweaters or about my lack of toiletries. She pulled a miniature notebook from her pocket and wrote down the things I needed. Toothpaste. Shampoo. Deodorant. Soap. Washcloth.

It was all delivered in a paper bag an hour later, and I organized everything in my little wire basket in the bathroom. Dorian stood in the doorway and watched me, arms crossed over his chest. He had brown hair and brown freckles. Green eyes and pale skin.

“Yer name’s Brine, it’in it?” He had a southern accent, so southern it almost sounded fake.

I nodded and adjusted the position of my soap. Irish Spring in a green box.

“I’m Dor-yin.” He shifted. His sneakers squeaked against the floor. “Where ya from?”

I didn’t look at him. Folded my washcloth.

“Fuhgot. You don’ tawlk.” Dorian took hold of the doorknob and twisted it twice, left then right. “I’m from Jorja. Allanna an’ abouts. I’m ownly here ‘cuz my meh-maw made me. Nothin’s wrong with me.”

I nodded again, still not looking at him. Everything in my toiletry basket was stacked in a pyramid. Something was off, though, so I began to rearrange.

“Yer fort-teen, ain’t cha?”

~*~

Dorian went to dinner at six, and the room was quiet for the first time in two hours.

The Greek woman brought me a tray and some papers. I ate the meat out of the burger, ate the fries after wiping off the salt. Didn’t look at the papers until Dorian was back, because I needed something to do.

What types of people do I not like being around? People who speak.

I was still hungry after dinner. Dorian had a box of Whitman’s chocolates hidden under his bed, and he offered me some, scooping out four candies and holding them in his warm, sticky palm. I shook my head and went out in the hall.

I didn’t know whether or not I was supposed to, but they hadn’t told me differently. I bought a package of peanut M&Ms from the machine at the end of the hall. Shoved them in my pocket.

On the way back to the room, I peeked in any open or cracked doors. Didn’t see much, really. Heard coughing once. Saw a blond kid drawing.

Dorian was changing into pajamas when I returned. He was soft. Chubby. He had large nipples like a girl’s and the waistband of his briefs was hidden under the fold of his stomach.

I quickly turned my head. Climbed in bed. Ate M&Ms and watched the ceiling.

~*~

Dorian woke me the next morning to ask if I wanted the shower first or second. It was seven. My eyes were crusty, red, exhausted. I waved him away and pulled the covers up over my head. It was Saturday. I wasn’t getting up at seven.

The Greek RA came in at seven-fifty and told me to get up.

“Sorry, Brian,” she said. Her hair was tied in a messy ponytail, and I bet she was as tired as me. “Haven and Bell have to be in and out by eight-thirty.” Eight-thirty was when the crazies came out to play.

She offered to walk me to the cafeteria, but I shook my head and she left. I climbed out of bed. Rubbed my eyes. Yawned. Threw on a pair of jeans and an old black T-shirt and went on my way.

I only wanted the biscuits for breakfast. The home fries were greasy; sausage was, too. Eggs make me nauseous.

The lady in the hairnet placed three fluffy biscuits on my tray before I backed out of line and walked over to the table in the back corner. Empty.

I had a seat. Tuned everything out.

It was five minutes later, as I was evening the spread of strawberry jelly on the inside of my biscuit, when He sat down. I didn’t look at him at first. Didn’t know who it was. Didn’t want to know. I just hoped he wouldn’t speak to me.

He didn’t.

We ate together for seven minutes before I looked up. It was the kid. The blond one next door, the one I’d seen drawing. His hair was combed back, skin was shiny, pale, and smooth. He was eating sausage with a fork.

I bit into my biscuit.

He looked at me after the buzzer sounded. I looked at him. He looked away. He was pretty, and his eyes were clear, and I wondered what brand of crazy was wrapped up inside him.

\--------------------

I’ve never liked Saturdays. Saturdays were the days I couldn’t hide. Homework could be pushed to Sunday if Mom wanted to take me shopping. Dad always tried to teach me to clean the pool. Rake leaves. Spray off the sidewalk. They’d ask me questions, talk to me, expect things.

I hated that.

Saturdays at the Hollow were different. I could stay in my cocoon as long as I wanted. Not come out, never come out if I so desired.

Noah rarely so much as looked at me and left the room at ten that morning without saying a word. I sat by the window looking out on the property and sketched for most of the morning. But it was no good. The angle was strange, and I didn’t like the frame of the trees.

Scafidi came in, likely to make sure I hadn’t hanged myself with bedsheets. She peered over my shoulder, smiled, told me I could go outside if I wanted.

“Might be a new perspective.”

She wanted me to leave my room. Be normal.

I shrugged and went.

It was cold outside, and the stone bench out on the patio froze my ass. My drawing was better, though. Sunlight hit the trees from behind, casting an ethereal glow around the branches. I drew for an hour before my hand gave out.

Lunch was grab and go, so I did. Paper bag with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich inside. Chips. JELL-O cup. Plastic spoon and three napkins. Soda or juice.

I sat on the window seat of the lounge where it was warm and safe, and I ate.

It was quiet. Kids were about, eating on the floor, at the board game table, and snuggled into beanbag chairs with their legs crossed under them. They didn’t speak much, though. Didn’t look at each other. Didn’t look at me.

It was nice.

But halfway through my sandwich, I felt a presence beside me. A slight dip in the cushion.

It was the boy from breakfast. He’d put on a sweater and his hair was combed.

He still didn’t look at me. Didn’t speak.

He ate his food and I ate mine.

When he was finished, he shoved his trash inside his paper bag and turned to me. I swallowed, peanut butter stuck to the inside of my throat.

I didn’t know what he was doing. He wasn’t looking at me, really, but his body was turned toward mine. He was frozen in place, as if waiting for something.

Nothing happened.

He was mute, too, I could tell. It was in the set of his mouth, the clench of his jaw, the flame in his eyes. The monster was in him, as it was in me.

I finished my last bite of sandwich and rolled down the top of my lunch bag. I bit my lip, eyes scanning the vicinity of the boy’s face but not quite landing there. He was fiddling with his lunch bag, folding and refolding the paper until it was even.

He had large eyes with dark lashes. His hands were rough, masculine, but clean.

I let my eyes settle on his face for a moment, and that was when he looked at me. Right at me.

My cheeks reddened. Stomach knotted.

He quirked a little smile as his eyes left my face. It was a small smile. Barely noticeable.

The sunlight bleeding through the window was warm on my back, but my face was warmer.

I wadded up my lunch bag and stood, and the boy moved, as if contemplating standing, as well. He didn’t, though. I picked up my Sprite can and went to dump my trash.

\--------------------

His name was Justin. Justin Taylor. Something like that. I’d read it off the card pasted to his room door on the way back from breakfast.

He scarfed down peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Drank Sprite. Didn’t like plain chips. Held his right hand funny sometimes, like it hurt.

I watched him leave the lounge after lunch. He was about my height, maybe a tad shorter. Naturally blond. Younger or older than me, I couldn’t tell. Kind of hot, though.

After he was gone, I dumped my trash and went exploring.

I took a left outside the lounge and walked past the cafeteria, past the nurse’s station, into the lobby. I wanted to see how far I could go without getting caught, for future reference.

The receptionist pressed an emergency button as I walked toward the school entrance. The doors locked. I looked at her. She watched my face, gauged me, gauged whether or not I was crazy. Looked away.

I turned around and retraced my steps.

I walked through Haven Hall, then took a right down Bell. At the end of that hall was a pair of double doors to Sommer. Locked.

Retraced my steps again. Went down the staff wing off Haven. Saw the RA rooms, the fancy lounge with plush couches. The break room. I turned the knob but it was locked. There was a keypad by the door.

At the end of the staff wing there was another entrance to Sommer. Locked.

I gave up. Went outside to the courtyard with the seven-foot tall wooden fence. Walked around. There was a wooden swing, an outdoor exercise center, a patio with stone benches. Up a hill was a foggy, green building. Inside was a pool and Jacuzzi, but the door was locked.

There was a path near the base of the hill that led toward the woods. Stepping stones and unlit lanterns led the way to a little garden filled with dead flowers, weathered stone angels, and a patch of what appeared to be graves. Old ones.

It innerved me a little, just standing there, and it was cold outside. I shoved my hands in the pockets of my pants and left the area.

Justin was on his way outside as I was on my way in. He was bundled in a silver microfiber coat with a large hood. A sketchpad was in one hand, bag of pencils in the other.

I tried not to look at him.

Out the corner of my eye, though, as I brushed past him, I almost thought I saw him smile.

\--------------------

I heard Scafidi call him “Brian” Monday morning at breakfast. We were eating together at the back corner table. Pancakes with blueberries. Toast. Orange juice. Not talking. Not looking at each other.

“Brian, I see you’ve met Justin,” Scafidi said, pulling out a chair. She sat down at our table and smiled. She’d flat-ironed her hair that morning, and it looked soft and smooth.

Brian looked up at her and shrugged, face blank.

She turned to me. “Justin, Brian’s from Pittsburgh, too.”

I nodded even though I hadn’t known that. Scraped my fork through a puddle of syrup.

“Small world, huh?” Scafidi tapped her nails on the table.

Neither of us answered. Neither of us nodded.

She smiled at us, though, a genuine smile, then she stood. “Ten minutes, boys. History with Mr. Jackson.”

Brian glanced over at me for a split second, and I, him. Both of us quickly adverted our eyes.

His name was Brian. He was from Pittsburgh. He made my stomach tingle. I took a bite of pancake.

We walked together to ninth grade American History. I carried a backpack with notebooks, paper, pencils, pens, markers, and a stapler. Brian carried nothing.

Mr. Jackson was a tall, heavyset black man in a tweed jacket and khaki pants. He stood at the front of the classroom and smiled at us as we entered.

I sat down at a desk. Third row, right side. Brian stood for a second, pondering, but eventually sat down behind me and one seat to the left.

The classroom held about twenty students, but there were only twelve. At a desk in the corner of the room sat a nurse in street clothes. She had a leather bag with her. Shots, probably. Medicine. Restraints. Just in case.

Class was boring. We learned about the senate, and St. James had covered that weeks before Thanksgiving. The good thing, though, was that Mr. Jackson didn’t ask questions. He didn’t talk to us, really. Spouted information. Wrote on the board. Rolled out the television stand and showed video clips. I was happy with that.

Ninth graders had the same classes at the same times. Brian and I were together all day. American History. Algebra I. Language Arts. Lunch. Earth Science. For our last class we had a choice of art, gym, or music. I picked art. Brian did, too.

At three o’clock, we parted ways. Didn’t look at each other, didn’t wave. Separated. I went back to my room and took a nap. Brian went to the snack machine down the hall.

Every weekday was the same. So was every weekend. By the end of my second full week at the Hollow, I could have lived entire days with my eyes shut. Routine was strict. Not enforced, just customary. Days were empty blocks of space on a planner, ready to be filled. Nights were ephemeral. Closed-eyed seconds. Flashes. I got bored very quickly, and yet I did nothing to change that boredom, that resulting ennui.

I saw Brian every day. We ate all three meals together, and I learned him. Learned his habits, his issues, the sound of his swallow, the squeak of his chair. He didn’t speak. He had moderate obsessive-compulsive disorder. Each morning he took five minutes to jelly one biscuit or piece of toast. He rid his food of excess grease. He arranged the items on his tray as if creating contemporary art.

He was either terrible at history or genuinely indifferent, as his daily quizzes were returned bleeding-- gaping zeros scrawled beside the fives, sixes, and sevens at the top of his paper. He liked science. He was good at English, okay at math. He was a half-assed artist but wasn’t so bad when he gave his work the time of day.

He was handsome.

I liked his eyes the most, and was glad when I had the chance to look at them. That was rare, but it happened. I’d catch him looking at me in class, and for a simple second we’d lock eyes. Then we’d quickly turn away.

His eyes were brown with flecks of green. They were interesting.

On the Friday of week two, December’s Parent Night, I sat in the lounge and pondered our relationship as I waited for the arrival of Mom and Dad.

We obviously weren’t friends. I knew nothing about him other than what I’d observed. We’d never spoken, we’d never so much as looked at each other with intent.

We stuck together, though. Meals, class, walking through the halls. We were comfortable. With each other, we didn’t have to worry about pressure.

We didn’t have to worry about speaking.

Mom and Dad arrived at a half past seven. They brought me home-cooked dinner. Cookies, too. Mom grasped me so hard, pulling me against her chest. Her heart hurt mine. Dad squeezed my shoulder.

I walked them to my room. Showed them a painting I’d completed. Let them flip through my sketchbook. Their mouths were hard when mine was soft and their hands were still cold from the outside air. I sat on my bed and munched a chocolate chip cookie while Mom made comments about how handsome I was, asked if I’d been eating enough, and decided to dig through my chest of drawers for some unknown reason.

Maybe not so unknown.

She seemed to believe I wanted to attempt suicide. But I was much too tired for that.

They left at a quarter past nine, just as Noah pulled a Hispanic woman by the hand into the room. She was his mother. Adoptive, maybe. Her black hair was long and straight and her skin was light. I followed Mom and Dad out and made my way to the candy and soda machines down the hall.

I purchased a bottle of Coke and a Snickers bar, and tucked it all under my arm before walking back to the room. The bottle felt cold through the thin fabric of my T-shirt. It was good, though. Frozen numbness made me feel alive.

When I reached the door to my room, I saw Brian. He was making his way down the hall, twirling something on a string like a lasso. He was dressed in jeans that showed his socks and a shirt with a hole in the sleeve. I turned around and followed him back to the vending machines.

\--------------------

I don’t know why he followed me, but he did.

Maybe it was because there were talkers in his room. Family. I would have turned around, too.

He followed me to the machine quietly. Stood three feet away as I worked my magic and pulled a bottle of root beer out of the tray, then a packet of peanut M&Ms. I shoved the M&Ms in my pocket and grasped the root beer bottle by the cold, slick neck.

I swallowed and turned around. He was looking at me, eyes big, mouth wide but closed in a tight, nervous-happy expression. I squeezed the Object in my left hand and shrugged.

He was pretty. His sweater was blue-- matched his eyes.

I think he thought I was wicked.

That made me happy.

I shoved the Object in my pocket and walked back to my room.

~*~

The next morning at breakfast, Justin was eating sausage and egg pizza at our usual table. I had a plate full of biscuits.

He looked at me as I sat down, peeking up from under his lashes for a fleeting moment. I smiled.

It was Saturday-- my third one at the Hollow. I’d been there for two weeks and one day and I was ready to leave. I hadn’t found a way out, though, so that was going to have to wait. Maybe until the Christmas holidays, when everyone was gone. Back at home with their families for a week. Sleeping in their own beds. Shitting in their own toilets. Scarfing down their own food.

I’d leave then.

I looked at Justin, who was looking at me. His cheeks reddened and eyes dropped. Nervous. He went back to eating his breakfast pizza, thumbs in pools of grease.

I reached in my pocket, grabbed the Object, and smacked it down on the table.

He jumped.

\--------------------

It was a fake quarter. A fucking fake quarter. Made of aluminum or something, attached to a two-foot piece of red thread.

Brian Kinney was a thief.

I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing.

I looked up at him, braving the stomach knot, the nerves, and he smiled at me. His teeth were clean, one was crooked. His lips were dark.

I waited for him after I was finished with my breakfast, and we dumped our trash and left the cafeteria together.

It was a different kind of Saturday.


	2. Chapter 2

When I look back on it years later, I can’t seem to figure out how Brian and I became friends. It seems a little impossible, really, two mutes becoming pals. We couldn’t communicate verbally, we had no way of bonding in traditional ways. We could never ask each other about movies or books. Couldn’t ask each other about life. Decisions. Thoughts. Couldn’t be normal.

Not then, at least. Not yet. Not that Saturday when Brian and I went on a silent walk around the grounds of Windy Hollow.

It was cold outside, colder than I could remember it ever being. The coldest day of the year. Trees were skeletons, gray bones, leafless outlines of what once lived and thrived. They were ugly, stark against the white sky, contorted, looming. They were my favorites to draw, to capture, and as Brian and I stepped outside, I wished I’d brought along my sketchbook and pencils. Gloves, too. My bones ached.

Brian didn’t have a coat. Just a thin gray sweater with a hole in the seam, a gray sweater that hit mid-thigh, that was long and stretched out like a dress. Brian was poor, I thought. Poor and sad.

I clutched my elbows, hugging myself in my coat as we walked. Brian didn’t seem to be cold at all. He tapped his fingers against his thighs, a nervous habit maybe, and watched his feet. Adidas sneakers. Old, ratty, black ones with red mud in every crease and crevice.

We walked down a dirt path that turned to a stone path that turned to an unkempt walkway. Brian knew where he was going. He walked with purpose, with a heavy step.

It was a garden he led me to. An ancient garden filled with dead plants, with dead grass, dead weeds. It was small, like someone’s private, hidden project, and I could tell that years ago, when it was loved, it was beautiful.

But there were graves.

A patch of them, six in all, scattered around like a haphazard ring of mushrooms after rain. Each made of stone, they were weathered, edges broken and rounded, destroyed and beaten by nature. Anna. Katie. Timothy. Three of them had names crudely etched on the surface, one had the image of a bird.

Standing above them, like a mother hovering over her children, was a stone angel so weathered that her eyes leaked brown. A weeping angel whose nose was worn flat, whose left wing was cracked.

I hated it. Hated looking at her, hated standing there amongst graves, watching. Hated the fact that I didn’t have my sketchbook. I needed to draw that scene exactly as it was at that moment. The sky overcast, the earth gray, Brian sitting on a stone bench with his legs stretched out in front of him.

He’d gone there before, I could tell. Maybe he even went there often. His body knew that bench, and his sneakers knew the ground. He was giving me a piece of himself by taking me there. Showing me something inside.

I walked over and sat beside him.

Brian turned a little on the bench, shifted to look at me. His eyes were clear and his face was soft, still childish in a way, the one thing puberty had yet to take over. He had a pimple on his chin and his mouth gently curved upward.

I held my breath.

~*~

Later, we grabbed lunch from the cafeteria and ate it together in the lounge. I watched Brian remove the top bun on his burger, take out the meat, and wipe it off with a napkin. He did that.

I devoured my entire burger in six bites, trying to hold in a smile.

We were friends after that day. Sort of. Some strange, silent version of friends. Every morning we’d meet outside our rooms, walk to breakfast together, walk to class, to lunch, back to class, before going our separate ways until dinner.

I liked being around him. I felt comfortable around him. I didn’t have to worry about dodging questions, about listening, about receiving disapproving glances when I simply sat there and stared after being told an important secret. I didn’t have to worry about that feeling inside when I wanted to say something so badly, wanted to scream, to shout, to swear with anger. It was a horrible feeling, more painful than can be imagined. That feeling when someone calls you a retard, a dumbass, asks, “Why don’t you say something, you stupid cocksucker?”

I never got that feeling around Brian.

I felt safe with him.

I think he felt safe with me, too.

\--------------------

Justin Taylor intrigued me.

I wasn’t sure why, but I found him interesting. The way he looked at things, the way he processed information, the way he studied… He was different.

He took his time with his observations. He stared. He liked to sit a lot and think. He drew. He was smart as hell, he was hot, but he liked to be invisible. Anonymous.

I don’t know why I took him to the garden, but I did. Maybe to see what he thought. To see what expression he’d make when he saw the graves. To see if he could handle it, handle shit, handle me. Handle the fact that I went there a lot to sit, to think, to wonder.

He was unflinching.

~*~

On Monday during Earth Science, Ms. Nguyen introduced our projects on the periodic elements. Boring.

She asked us to find a partner. I stared at my shoes until Justin came over and sat at my table. He pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil and made notes as Nguyen spoke. Visual representation. Informative poster. Brian K. and Justin T., krypton. He had terrible handwriting, but the Superman he drew in the corner of the paper was good.

After science we had art. Justin took it seriously, very seriously. I didn’t. I scribbled stick figures and still made one hundreds on everything because mental patients got free passes. Justin got one hundreds for pictures that could have been hung in art museums. It wasn’t fair, and I couldn’t have cared less. It was the way things were.

We were busy working on our still life paintings of straight-backed chairs when I realized that Justin and I were sort of friends. We walked together, ate together, purposely sat beside each other in class. I was his go-to partner for projects.

I didn’t know how that made me feel. I wasn’t sure if I knew how to be a friend.

There was Michael, but that was elementary school. It was Michael for three years, then no one for four. I didn’t like people. I didn’t want them around me.

Mostly I just didn’t like them because they spoke.

So…

I looked over at Justin. His bottom lip was caught between his teeth, eyes focused on the chair. Blue eyes. So much concentration. He had the whitest skin. The smoothest hands.

I glanced back to my painting. Ugly streaks of paint. I wadded it up into a ball and grabbed a new sheet of paper.

I’d try harder this time.

\--------------------

Our Earth Science projects were due Friday, the last day of school before Christmas break. I already knew what we were going to do from the moment Ms. Nguyen assigned us krypton, so we didn’t meet until Wednesday. Before then, I’d outlined the project on a piece of paper and handed it to Brian. He’d shrugged and handed the paper back. Didn’t look at me.

We met in Brian’s room after dinner. It was the first time I’d so much as seen inside.

Physically, his room was exactly like mine. Beds in the same position, the same ugly comforters, the same book of helpline numbers by the telephone.

He was much neater than me, though. Drawers were closed, no articles of clothing peeking out, no books on the floor, no desk that had seemed to accumulate everything that didn’t belong anywhere specific. His side of the room was in pristine condition. Untouched, almost.

His roommate was clearly a piece of work, his level of neatness a two to Brian’s ten. But then again, his roommate was Dorian, and word was that Dorian was a little bit insane.

I set my backpack on Brian’s bed and pulled out my Earth Science notebook, then I watched as Brian kicked off his sneakers and pulled off his socks. He had long toes. Little brown hairs were beginning to sprout up on them.

He grabbed the rolled up project board from where it rested in the corner and came over to spread it out on the floor.

Together, we quietly created our visual representation of krypton: A fourteen-panel comic featuring Brian and I as Supermen fighting against the evil Dr. Hobbs, whose attempts to use kryptonite to weaken us were futile.

Brian pointed at “Hobbs” and raised an eyebrow. Where’d the name come from? I shrugged.

I drew the pictures, Brian wrote the story. It was good. Very, very good. A-plus work, it had to be.

We still needed to create the informative poster, but that could wait for another day. That was easy.

I sat on the floor, shoes off, legs stretched out, and read over the finished comic. A knot formed in my stomach as tight and hard as a rock, then slowly dissipated the closer I got to the end. Brian read over my shoulder. I could smell the macaroni from dinner on his breath, could feel the moist puffs of air against my cheek.

~*~

In celebration of our brilliance, Brian pulled the Object out of his pocket and swung it in a circle. I smiled at him. Right at him. It felt like progress.

We stole candy and sodas from the vending machines in the hall and consumed them on Brian’s bed. Watched cartoons even though we were teenagers.

I liked Brian’s thumbs, which he used to scratch at the Coke label on his bottle. I wanted to touch them.

\--------------------

Justin, with a wave, left my room at nine, and Dorian came in half an hour later sucking on a gigantic bottle of Mountain Dew. He found me lying on my back, staring at the ceiling.

“Sick?” He asked me, removing his lips from his drink for just long enough to speak. He had a red ring around his upper lip.

Definitely not sick. Strange, though. I ignored him and went to take a shower.

~*~

The next morning at breakfast, Justin was more animated than usual. We both were, really. Something had changed.

I idly stacked packets of strawberry jelly. Justin knocked them over and smirked.

When I think back, I think that’s the moment we began.

Scafidi came by our table before the bell rang. She pulled out a chair and sat in it backward, resting her elbows on the seatback.

“Pittsburgh for Christmas?” She asked, trying to appear young. Conversational. Bullshit.

I looked over at Justin, who nodded.

“Brian?”

I shrugged. As if I were going home to Jack for Christmas. Please. Or worse…Sylvia and Bob.

“Let me know when you figure it out,” Scafidi said, placing a hand on my shoulder. She did that. I hated it. “We need to get a headcount.”

Scafidi left and Justin stared at me. He wanted to ask, I could feel it.

But he couldn’t ask, and I couldn’t answer.


End file.
